Colleen's thoughts on writing, directing and coaching, and her unique take on life itself!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Road rage

Now that I have my glasses-free 20-20 vision after lasik surgery, one of my actors asked me to write about road rage.

Like, what causes road rage - because he finds himself becoming pretty testy in traffic!

I'm very fortunate because I don't drive often. But if I did? I would be frustrated with the poorly planned roadways and traffic patterns around Seattle - we have one of the worst traffic problems in the US.

Here's the problem: it's all about losing control of our own destiny.

We have a goal - to reach a certain destination. But total strangers and government imposed blockades (signal lights, poorly planned roadways, etc.) prevent us from reaching that destination in what we believe to be a reasonable time.

Think of a football game. Every time one team tries to reach its goal - a touchdown - the other team is there to prevent them from reaching that goal!

That's what it's like being in congested traffic - like playing in a football game in which the other team is a million or so cars and trucks. Only you are the football!

Interestingly, governments are putting out public service notices on television and radio instructing us to chill out - to relax, take a deep breath and figure out a way to enjoy your long communte or being stuck in traffic.

Um, trying to keep drivers passive about suffering through their daily plight is no proper or positive solution to a problem that needs better highway engineering, mass transit and transportation planning.

Those with short fuses aren't paying any attention to those messages anyway - and they aren't so forgiving. If they feel choked off from reaching their goal by *one* too many people, they can explode like a two year-old wanting his blocks - NOW!

The frustration that spills over for them has resulted in road rage violence and death.

But that's the cause of road rage: feeling you have no control over your destination, feeling trapped and unable to create a better solution to reach your goal in a reasonable period of time.

What I do, however, is get off congested highways and take backroads as often as possible, which don't ever seem to be as clogged as the main highway arteries!